Using iLife '11: How to Create a New DVD Project with iDVD

You can create a new iLife DVD project without any help from iDVD. After you launch iDVD, the opening dialog appears. To create a new project, follow these steps:

Click the Create a New Project button.

iDVD displays the Create Project dialog.

Create a new project.

Replace the words My Great DVD in the Save As field with the title of your DVD, and choose from the Where pop-up menu a location on a hard drive to save it.

Define the video picture’s aspect ratio.

Pick Standard for the 4:3 aspect ratio used in standard TV, or Widescreen for the 16:9 aspect ratio (used for HD and other formats). If none of the videos you’re adding uses the widescreen format, you’re probably better off with the standard format. You can change it at any time by choosing Project→Switch to Standard (4:3) or Project→Switch to Widescreen (16:9).

Click OK to create the project.

iDVD opens its main window. iDVD automatically picks the first theme (Revolution) and shows you the drop zone and other areas of the theme’s main menu.

On the right side of the main window, scroll the Theme Browser to see more themes, and click a theme to select it.

To see even more themes, click the 7.0 Themes pop-up menu and choose earlier versions of iDVD, or All to see all of them.

To see the animation on the menu, click the Motion button.

You can also drag the motion playhead along the Motion timeline underneath the Viewer to see the animation.

Many iDVD themes use the widescreen aspect ratio. If your project is set to the standard aspect ratio and you pick a widescreen theme (or if your project is set to widescreen and you pick a standard theme), iDVD displays a dialog to choose whether to keep the project in its original format (click Keep) or switch to the theme’s format (click Change).